Peeping Scarecrow
by Lellian
Summary: In which Naruto is an obvious pervert, Kakashi is a sneakier one and Sakura keeps getting sap in her hair. Sasuke wants a new team. KakaSaku.


**Title:** Peeping Scarecrow.

**Author:** Lell.

**Date of completion:** 19/09/05. I'm transferring stuff from an old account and this wasn't _too_ awful.

**Rating:** PG-13.

**Summary:** In which Naruto is an obvious pervert, Kakashi is a sneakier one and Sakura keeps getting sap in her hair. Sasuke wants a new team. (KakaSaku.)

oOo

"Waaaaaaaaaaaah!"

The horror-stricken, heart-wrenching, _soul-tearing_ scream ripped through the evening air, startling birds from the trees and sending a peacefully grazing herd of deer into a run that would have done Bambi's mother proud. It also had the added side effect of making a certain silver haired jounin look up from the campfire he was tending to. The single eye on view narrowed, cat-like limbs stretching up from their crouched position by the fire. Kakashi was the epitome of an alert ninja – in fact, you'd expect to find a picture of him in the nin-dictionary next to alert, just to illustrate it.

In other words, he was very alert. Did you get that?

A rustling of bushes near to their camp drew his attention. The copy-nin's body was tense, all his weight resting on the balls of his feet so he could pivot any which way. Kakashi was ready for danger – this was enemy territory after all.

You could almost see his ears twitch as the rustling intensified, harsh breathing and snapping twigs crescendoing at a tremendous pace towards him. His fingers flexed, instinctively loosening and readying themselves to shape hand signs – a fast, instantaneous attack was always a good start.

He never got the chance.

The sound of the approaching _thing_ was at maximum now…_there_. A low lying shrub at the edge of the clearing to his right was thrashing furiously, like someone was trying to force their way through it. Part of him was surprised at the person giving away their position like that, but the other part of him was just surprised when a blur of pink, white and green flashed out of the bushes and cannoned right into his stomach, knocking him flat on his ass as a piercing wail assaulted his ears.

"Kakashiiiiiiiiii!"

Being hit by a naked Sakura wrapped in a towel so skimpy it could have come from his Icha Icha Paradise was _not_something he had been expecting.

"Waaaah! Kakashi!" Sakura's plaintive yell lapsed into her speaking so fast that it was incoherent – Kakashi was too busy trying to deal with an armful of half naked girl that he didn't have time to try and translate her frantic babble. As it was, he only caught her at the end of her tirade. "-and Naruto's a _pervert_!"

The copy-nin blinked. And blinked again. Except that, with his one eye covered, it came out as more of a wink, which probably wasn't suitable for the situation. On second thought, this whole situation wasn't suitable and he just hoped that no one would walk in on this and misconstrue it.

"Don't you think you're all being a little noisy?" Joy of joys, Sasuke had to choose this moment to walk in with the armful of firewood Kakashi had sent him out to gather. The normally impassive Uchiha's face turned incredulous though at the picture painted before him in the clearing. Sakura in a towel, clinging to a guilty looking Kakashi as she carried on talking at supersonic speeds, in obvious distress. His eyes darkened, his rare, but deep protective streak deciding to make an appearance as he started to stalk towards Kakashi. "Bastard…"

Trust Sasuke to think the worst of him – the look in his student's eye was hardly a reassuring one and the copy-nin himself was hampered by Sakura as she clung to him like a little pink monkey. A little pink, half naked monkey that is. Which sort of makes all the difference when you have one clinging to you and said monkey's protector decides to walk in on you.

"Sasuke, control yourself," he told him in a tone he hoped came off as fatherly and calm. "This isn't what it looks like."

"…pervert…" Kakashi winced – of course Sakura had to choose that moment to start repeating herself and for that one word to be audible above all the rest. Sasuke had by now put up his 'must kill' face, normally reserved for Naruto and the odd enemy-nin. It was a test of his agility, but Kakashi managed to put some space between him and the angry youth while keeping Sakura marginally decent.

It was time to play the "I'm a jounin AND a teacher card.'

"Sasuke, calm down." Still muttering vague threats about perverted teachers trying to rob the cradle, the Uchiha ninja backed down, if only temporarily, letting Kakashi turn his attention to his other charge. "Sakura…put some consonants back in that sentence, please…"

Tears beaded dramatically at the corners of her large, green eyes, her lips wibbling adorably as she did so. "Naruto…pervert."

"The Sexy no Jutsu didn't tell you that?" Sasuke growled, pointedly flipping a kunai from hand to hand. Kakashi sent him an impassive look – he wasn't being helpful here.

Once he'd ascertained that Sasuke wasn't going to chime in anymore, he looked steadily down at the girl who was muttering into his chest, small hands clenched in his vest. "So what happened, kunoichi?"

"I was…taking a bath," Sakura started in a stricken voice, letting go of Kakashi with one hand just long enough so that she could run a hand through the damp pink hair that was starting to grow again, "Because you said we didn't have much free time and after Sasuke threw me into that tree by accident, I had pine sap in my hair. Do you know how hard it is to get pine sap out of hair?" Gryphon green eyes glowed slightly and her posture improved as she warmed to the subject with her usual zeal – a flighty mind had already placed the event that had distressed her in secondary importance to, well, hair care. "I mean, I didn't even have a hot oil treatment with me, so I was trying to get a good lather out of some soapwort, but it was sticky and didn't smell that good – of all the days to run out of shampoo, just when-"

Kakashi could see Sasuke's eye start to twitch at the promise of a bout of 'girl talk' and he himself was perilously close to rubbing his temples in exasperation. "Sakura," he said, cutting her off before she advanced into the realms of leave in conditioner versus shampoo and softener combined. "Where does Naruto come into this?"

"Oh." The heat entered her eyes again, lips twisting into an alluring pout that only young women could pull off. "He fell out of a tree."

"Oh."

Wrong thing to say – Sakura's eyes sparked and crackled (were they supposed to do that?) as she drew herself up to her full height. The effect was rather spoiled considering the fact that she was, A, wrapped in a skimpy green towel and, B, huddled on a copy-nin's lap. "Oh? Just, '_Oh_'? It means he was _spying_ on me!" The piercing edge was back and would have probably soared up in pitch if a certain blonde hadn't stumbled into the camp, looking considerably worse for wear. Black eyed and bruised, showing the signs of clumsily done first aid on the areas Sakura had lacerated in her rage, he looked surprisingly innocent for the actions attributed to him.

Not that he had much time to look 'innocent' because Sasuke quickly had him by the ear and was dragging him back off into the forest to do heaven knows what to him. Naruto's angry wails and protests could be heard, as well as the cracking and whipping of branches that suggested a scuffle between the two young men. Sasuke was clearly highly pissed about all of this (not that an Uchiha would ever be anything as lowbrow as 'pissed' – irate maybe) and Naruto was on the receiving end of his full wrath.

Believe it or not, this was actually a sign of the group getting along better. Call it…Sasuke instructing Naruto in the manners of gentlemen. Doesn't that sound more dignified than 'I am so going to give you an ass-whupping for peeking at a naked team-mate that's under _my_ protection'?

Actually, Kakashi was a little miffed by this – wasn't that his line? Sasuke had taken the easy route; he got to pound on Naruto while Kakashi got left to deal with a hormonal young woman.

The joys of being a teacher…

"I think he's sorry…" he said finally after hearing a particularly loud yell from the direction the two had left in.

Sakura frowned, looking petulant as she buried her face back in Kakashi's vest. "He better be," came the muffled grumble from chest-height. "Else I'll set Lee on him…"

Now that was a fate worse than death – a zealous, 'Sakura is my Goddess of life!' Lee combined with a teenage, 'I only wanted a peek!" Naruto would end with a wrathful Lee and a very dead Naruto.

Kakashi's leg was cramping now and, over Sakura's head, he could see the fire he had worked so hard on sputter and die. He sighed. This was going to be a long night after an even longer day…but Naruto had given him an idea.

Speaking of whom…

"Sasuke, stop! I was only keeping watch! Yaaagh! You bastard!"

oOo

Another day closer to Konaha, another afternoon of training, another tree Sasuke had thrown her into…which meant that, this time, it was fir sap in her hair. Great. Sakura was still picking the sticky gum out of her hair, even after three dunks in the river they were camping by. This was her fourth attempt at washing it out and her efforts were punctuated by very heartfelt and very unladylike curses as more hair came out than sap.

"Stupid tree." Tug. "Stupid sap." Pull. "Stupid Sasuke." Yank. "Ouch." The kunoichi was looking mournfully at the handful of pink strands when, behind her, something rustled. Ominously.

Stealing Kakashi's place in the nin-dictionary as the epitome of alert, Sakura moved to the edge of the river in quick, neat strokes, pulling her towel around her chilly body. Her eyes were flat and angry, dangerous as they scanned the forest around her.

"Naruto, prepare for a world of pain," she called out threateningly, picking up a kunai and tossing it ominously in her skilled hands. "Come out now and I won't make you bleed too much…"

Silence.

"Naruto…don't make me count to three."

Again silence and Sakura narrowed her eyes in aggravation. She was even about to do as she had promised and count to three, but, somewhere to her right, a tree branch moved and her instincts snapped. Whipping around, the kunai left her fingers in a flash of silver light as it slammed into the tree's foliage, but there was no cry of pain or sound of it hitting wood…or flesh.

Pulling back a fraction, the kunoichi looked puzzled. She was sure she had heard someone in the tree…or was she being paranoid.

"Lose something?" a lazy voice asked and Sakura started as a silver-haired head, complete with leaves sticking out of the already messy thatch, poked out of the very same tree she had thrown her knife into. Holding her knife in fact, in one of those large hands of his.

"Kakashi!" she yelped, more from surprise than anything else before the implications kicked in and she did a very good impression of Sasuke's 'must kill' face. "You sick, perverted son of an ill-bred _pig_ – what are you doing in that tree?"

The jounin scratched his messy hair and pretended to look thoughtful…or innocent. Neither of which he could pull off.

"I was keeping watch?"

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Old, old, old. But still amusing to me. I will always have something of a weakness for KakaSaku even if most of the stories out there are mind-numbingly predictable (hey, like this one!) and portray Sakura as the most perfect being in the world and play too heavily upon the age thing. There's only so much willing deflowerment a girl can read…


End file.
